


On Defense

by chucks_prophet



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Best Friends, Bullying, Castiel is Thirteen, Castiel wears glasses, Childhood Friends, Dean's a Pining Mess, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Glasses, Gym class, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Jealous Dean, Junior High, M/M, Mary Lives, Mathlete Castiel, Protective Dean Winchester, Puberty, Schoolboys, Smart Castiel, Smart Dean Winchester, dean is thirteen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-16
Updated: 2016-03-16
Packaged: 2018-05-27 00:50:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6262942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chucks_prophet/pseuds/chucks_prophet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It began at the end.</p><p>The end of Dean’s love life, that is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On Defense

It began at the end.

 

The end of Dean’s love life, that is.

 

The _real_ beginning began with a plagiaristic prick—Gordon Walker and the Pimps, if you will. Gordon is the Kanye West of Junior High with a snapback cap fit for a tortoise, a brown leather jacket inspired by shit-stained eyes, and a mouth fit for a doghouse. And every week for the past five _years,_ Dean’s put up with his relentless despotism, starting with his baby brother Sam.

Only when Sam grew three sizes in a single schoolyear Gordon moved onto someone whose growth stunned long before he gave up on broccoli: His best friend Cas.

Everyone knows Dean is—aside from a “douchebag” and a “faggot”, that is—fiercely protective of the ones he loves. But Cas isn’t just anyone he loves. Cas is _the_ one he loves. Cas, with those big round sea bubbles for eyes and that sunshine-stealing smile. Cas, the reason Dean gets _called_ a douchebag and a faggot, because he’s so aggressively in love with him. _That_ ’s the boy Gordon Walker’s been playing one-sided tag with. So naturally, Dean snaps like a rubber band.

“So, are we still on for tonight?” Cas asks, slipping his black jeans over his waist.

“Ah shit,” Dean curses, leaning against his locker. The sticky bright blue _H_ in “ **HOMO** ” refuses to wash off, but it’s not like he spends a lot of time cracking them open. “I’m sorry, man; I totally forgot about tryouts.”

"You're not serious, are you?"

"Why not?"

"Dean,” Cas deadpans, “that's public humiliation."

"Says the mathlete," Dean snorts, picking lint off the shoulder of Cas's red and white coat. Apparently rattling off answers to quadratic (read: problem _ratic_ ) formulas is all the rage this year. And just when Dean thought Cas couldn’t be a bigger nerd, he went and got glasses. (“ _I can’t go through life squinting, Dean,”_ he’d told him over text. Yes, Cas used perfect punctuation and grammar. “ _Those equations aren’t gonna solve themselves!”)_

Of course, like anyone else, Cas has doubts going to school with a big honking pair of frames as square as his jaw, so Dean makes sure to be on high alert the following day. Only, when Dean catches a glimpse of him in the hallway the next day, his alarm system sends out a memo to his friend down south: Cas looks even _more_ attractive with his blue eyes stressed and nose scrunched and Dean’s rubber band just splits in half.

"Please, math is a dignified sport,” Cas states over the manic chatter of puberty-stricken boys. “Football is a three piece equation."

"Which would be?"

"Punt, pass, fumble, repeat."

Dean shrugs, having neither the passion nor logic to disagree with him there. "I still don't know why you don’t try out. You’ve got a better arm than half the guys on the team."

"I belong to a much better team," Cas preens, smirking wide enough to fit a dozen toothpicks before drilling a finger into his chest. "And so would you if you just applied yourself more. You’re amazing at math!”

Dean sasses through a blush creeping to his cheeks, “Alright, _Mom.”_

“Well, well, well,” a deep voice echoes throughout the P.E. room. As if on cue, Dean’s _AC/DC_ shirt puffs out, the maroon text facing the voice’s owner. “If it isn’t Dean Winchester and—” Gordon’s thoughts cut short as his eyes rake over Castiel’s head sticking out from Dean’s shoulder like an awkward zit. “Those prescription?”

Dean’s brows sit uncomfortably above his eyes as Cas detaches himself from Dean’s shadow. “Yeah…”

“Not bad, Novak,” Gordon comments. “Maybe I should get a pair.”

“Why, so you can magnify just how full of shit you are?” Dean spits.

The corners of Gordon’s lips deflate as a smile stretches across them. “I hear the Poetry Club’s looking for new members. How ‘bout that? Then you can write a prose on my _brown beauty.”_

“Just _brown_ works, too,” Dean retorts. Gordon holds up his hands—an unfamiliar sight to the two boys.

“Okay, calm down, I’m leavin’. And Cas,” he digresses, gesturing to the smaller boy. “I wasn’t kidding about what I said. They make you look more… I don’t know, _above_ Dean’s shit.”

Once Gordon fades from view, Cas grabs his brick leaden backpack and turns to face Dean, who hasn’t realized he’s been staring at a tacky motivational poster above Cas’s head. “Are you okay?”

Dean grabs his own backpack. “Yeah, no, I—uh, was just thinking about what to bring to the field tonight.”

“Your head would help,” Cas laughs, tugging on his bicep. “C’mon, we’re gonna be late to Chem.”

***

The compliments about Cas’s glasses keep rolling in.

At lunch, a few girls round Dean and Cas’s table— _their_ table, where they haven’t been bothered for two whole years—with shorts higher than the annual Ball Drop in Times Square. Cas, rightfully immersed in his double chocolate pudding, shyly acknowledges their accolades and sends them on their marry way, but there’s a blush the size of a baseball field still tacked on his face long after they leave.

Eventually, when people become more persistent, he lets someone sit at their table. And not just anyone: Aaron Bass. Aaron Bass, President of the LGBTQA+ club on campus. Better known to Dean as the guy who turned him down when he swallowed his pride and asked him to Winter Formal last semester.

“Did you always have these blue of eyes?” Aaron asks, resting his hand on Cas’s wrist. Dean’s glad he brought his lunch today, that way he had a bag in case he needed to vomit. _Yes, he’s always had those eyes! What’d you think, he was wearing contacts? Then he wouldn’t have any use for glasses, idiot._

Dean nearly bursts into applause when he sees Cas shifting out of his grimy grip, but then he _laughs._ “I guess. I mean, I don’t look at myself too often in the mirror.”

“Well you definitely should do that more,” Aaron points out, then proceeds to dip his finger like a damn wafer into Cas’s pudding before making a show of it with his tongue. “You’ve got the most gorgeous face.”

Dean harrumphs his mom’s leftover lasagna, “Hey, Cas, we still on for tonight?”

Cas does that squinty-eye head tilt that can’t be bought in any special edition Lunchable. “What do you mean? I thought you told me first period you had… you know,” he says, gritting through his teeth, “your thing.”

“I did, yeah,” Dean replies quickly, “but I can cancel it. We’re due for a guy’s night, right?” He makes sure to look straight at Aaron as he says that.

Cas must’ve noticed the daggers in Dean’s eyes because he turns to a sneering Aaron and asks, “Can I talk to Dean alone?” Aaron rakes his brain for memory of what a polite but not overly compensating smile looks like before handing it to Cas with an “ _Of course”_ and leaving the table. “Alright, spill, what’s up with you?”

“What do you mean?”

“What do you mean what do I mean?” Cas projects back at him, “I come to school looking different and you’re wound up tighter than usual.”

Dean blows through his nose. Five years of friendship doesn’t hide much aside from baggage. “It’s not about you looking different, Cas. It’s about everyone _else_ looking at you different.”

“Yeah, well, I know I’ve been getting a lot of attention today—”

“You can’t be serious,” Dean scoffs. “Amara Swallow asked you to be her partner in Chem.”

Cas narrows his eyes. “So?”

“So, she will _literally_ swallow you, dude.”

“What do you care?”

Dean’s eyes widen to the size of Brussel sprouts as he crosses his arms over his chest. “Wow, Cas, don’t give any credit to your _best friend_. I’m just trying to look after you—”

“Well maybe I don’t need looking after, you ever think of that?” Cas blurts loud enough to turn a few heads. Dean bites his lip from saying something he might regret because there’s something behind those frames that’s different from their occasional arguments. Something like fear.

It’s Dean’s turn to capture Cas’s wrist. “Cas, what’s wrong?”

“I _like_ you, okay? That’s what,” Cas spits, lip quivering as he swats away a trespassing tear. He throws his half-eaten pudding onto his tray before shooting out of his chair, but Dean’s faster, decorating himself in low nutritional value pride as Cas runs into him.

Dean doesn’t waste any more time than he already has by swiping his glasses from his face, grabbing the back of his neck, and pulling him into a scorching kiss. Scorching because Cas responds with pudding breath and a face-breaking smile, and _why hadn’t he done this earlier??_

Dean’s the first to pull away, ignoring the string of hoots and hollers their way, leaving Cas chasing after spit-slick lips. He peers up at Dean, eyes laced with a thousand different questions, and the only thing Dean can think to say is:

“I’m gonna make a hell of a defense.”

 


End file.
